When the 2021 season began, Shohei Ohtani was at a career crossroads.

Ever since he’d hurt his arm halfway through his rookie season in 2018, Ohtani had failed to live up to his two-way player promise. After a pandemic-shortened 2020 season when Ohtani called his performance “pathetic,” there was a growing sentiment that he might never again be the two-way superstar we saw before the injury.

That seems like a lifetime ago now that Ohtani has completed three of the best seasons in baseball history, a run that is expected to land him a record-breaking free-agent contract this winter.

Ohtani’s oblique and elbow injuries ended this season a couple of weeks early, allowing for extra time to reflect on how the “Babe Ruth of Japan” arrived at this point.

A ranking of his top 10 moments in the majors so far – excluding the World Baseball Classic – has to start back at that crossroads moment, in April 2021.

1. A First Inning To Remember

Ohtani had barely pitched in 2019 and 2020 because of Tommy John surgery and a separate arm injury, and he had also shown dramatic signs of decline as a hitter in 2020, so there was plenty of skepticism following him when 2021 began.

In a last-ditch effort to see what he could do, the Angels stripped all the restrictions from Ohtani that season. There was cautious optimism after spring training.

On April 4, the Angels faced the Chicago White Sox in a nationally televised game. It was Ohtani’s first start of the season on the mound and the first time he’d ever hit and pitched in the same game in the majors.

In the top of the first inning, Ohtani threw three pitches at 100 mph or harder. In the bottom of the first, he hit a ball 115 mph for a homer.

The jaw-dropping first inning was the opening act to a 2021 season that made baseball history, ending with a unanimous American League MVP Award.

2. Dominant On the Mound

Ohtani was flat-out awful in spring training in 2018, on the mound and at the plate. Many people were skeptical that he could really succeed as a two-way player. In Ohtani’s first week in the majors, he had a solid performance on the mound in a start in Oakland, and then he hit homers in three consecutive games.

Ohtani made his second mound start on April 8 against the A’s at Angel Stadium. Ohtani took a perfect game into the seventh inning.

That performance, on the heels of his offensive awakening, convinced the baseball world that spring training wasn’t a true indication of what he could do, and he went on to succeed as a two-way player to a level no one had reached since Babe Ruth in 1919.

3. Doubleheader in Detroit

Ohtani pitched the first shutout, and first complete game, of his career with a one-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers on July 27, 2023. He returned to DH in the second game, hitting two homers.

“He probably had the greatest day of baseball that anybody’s ever seen today,” Tigers pitcher Matt Manning said. “It’s incredible.”

The Angels’ doubleheader sweep also pulled them within just three games of a playoff spot, just after they’d made a trade to signify they were going for it.

Although the Angels began to collapse the following week, on the day of the doubleheader sweep it seemed like a watershed moment, the beginning of Ohtani’s first push for the playoffs in an Angels uniform.

4. Rangers Romp

Another of Ohtani’s high points during the 2023 season came during a four-game series against the first-place Texas Rangers in June in Arlington.

The Angels won three of the four games, and Ohtani hit four homers and drove in eight runs in the series. He also picked up the victory with a six-inning effort in the series finale.

“Probably one of the most impressive series I’ve seen from a hitter,” teammate Mike Trout said. “Just fun to watch.”

5. Electric in Fenway

Even though Ohtani pitched a one-hit shutout and twice carried no-hitters into the seventh, his May 5, 2022 start against the Red Sox at Fenway Park is arguably his most dominating pitching performance.

Ohtani worked seven scoreless innings, with 11 strikeouts and no walks. More impressive, he threw 81 strikes among his 99 pitches, the highest percentage of his career. He got called strikes or whiffs on 46.5% of his pitches, which is the second-highest rate of his career. The major league average is around 29%.

It was also Ohtani’s first start in the ballpark that Ruth had called home more than 100 years earlier.

6. Focused in Texas

On the morning of Sept. 5, 2018, a few days after he had pitched for the first time in months, Ohtani received the diagnosis that his ulnar collateral ligament was torn and he needed Tommy John surgery.

That night, Ohtani went 4 for 4 with two home runs against the Rangers in Arlington, demonstrating the kind of ability to put adversity aside that would become a trend for him.

He homered in 2020 in his first game after learning he had a strain of the flexor pronator mass that would prevent him from pitching for the rest of the season, and he doubled after learning he had a torn UCL again last month.

7. Back-to-back brilliance

The single best offensive day of Ohtani’s career was June 21, 2022, when he hit two homers and drove in eight runs against the Kansas City Royals. Both homers were three-run shots, including one to tie the score in the ninth inning.

The next day, Ohtani had one of his best pitching performances, working eight scoreless innings, with 13 strikeouts.

8. The Ohtani All-Star Game

The 2021 All-Star Game in Denver was a two-day showcase for Ohtani, who was making his first real splash with all of baseball watching.

Ohtani competed in the Home Run Derby, losing in a second-round tiebreaker to Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals. The next day, Ohtani was the starting pitcher and the starting DH for the American League.

“I’m expecting to be pretty fatigued and exhausted after these two days,” Ohtani said before any of it began, “but there’s a lot of people that want to watch it. And I want to make those guys happy, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

9. Crushed in Seattle

Ohtani has hit plenty of tape-measure homers, but the most memorable was on July 9, 2021, just a few days before he went to the All-Star Game.

Facing Seattle Mariners left-hander Marco Gonzales, Ohtani crushed a ball 463 feet into the upper deck at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park. It was only the sixth time anyone had hit a homer into that level.

It was so unexpected that television viewers never got to see the ball land. The camera operator didn’t pan high enough, so the screen was filled with fans in the lower deck, pointing and looking up to see where the ball had gone.

Shohei Ohtani – Los Angeles Angels (33) pic.twitter.com/rnAJQmygiB

— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) July 10, 2021

10. A Cycle In St. Pete

Ohtani became the first player born in Japan to hit for the cycle in the majors when he accomplished the feat on June 13, 2019, against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Ohtani had the homer, triple and double before he came up to the plate for the final time. A little earlier, he had been in the batting cage and Ohtani told teammate David Fletcher he didn’t want to settle for a single in his next at-bat. “I want another homer,” Ohtani told him.

Ohtani was clearly trying for a homer with his first two rib-jarring swings in his final at-bat, but he got to two strikes and then settled for a history-making single.

Ohtani has had three-quarters of a cycle 10 times in his career, including seven times this season.

UP NEXT

Angels (LHP Patrick Sandoval, 7-13, 4.48 ERA) at Rays (RHP Taj Bradley, 5-7, 5.56 ERA), Tuesday, 3:40 p.m., Bally Sports West, 830 AM

Related Articles